Mental Wellbeing and Specific Phobia

Emotional Wellbeing

relates to the ability to feel a range of emotions and express them in a positive way

High level of functioning

the ability to carry out a wide range of daily activities, attend to self-care, maintain interpersonal relationships and demonstrate resilience in the face of everyday challenges

Life Stressor

an everyday or conceivable event, such as a relationship breakdown, work challenge or failing a test

Mental Disorder

a condition that affects mood, thinking and behaviour and is typically long lasting

Mental health and wellbeing

a beneficial emotional state in which a person realises their abilities, copes with the normal stresses of life, works productively and contributes to their community

Mental health problem

a relatively short-term disruption that impacts on a person's everyday functioning

Mentally Healthy

the state of not having difficulty with everyday activities and displaying resilience

Resilience

the ability to recover from adversity

Social Wellbeing

relates to the connections you make with other people and your ability to get along with people in a community

Wellbeing

a complex combination of a person's physical, social, emotional, mental and spiritual health that is linked to happiness and life satisfaction

Anxiety

an emotion akin to worrying and uneasiness that something is wrong or something bad is going to happen usually accompanied by physiological signs

Stress

a state of mental or emotional and physiological tension, resulting from factors that are perceived to challenge or threaten our ability to cope

Biological factor

a factor that relates to the physiological functioning of the body

Psychological Factor

a factor that relates to the functioning of the brain and the mind, including cognitive and affective processes such as thought patterns and memory

Social factor

a factor that relates to the social components of a person's environment

External Factor

a factor that influences mental wellbeing and originates from outside a person, such as the physical and social environment

Internal factor

a factor that influences mental wellbeing and originates from within a person, such as genetics and hormones

Disorganised insecure attachment

occurs when a child does not receive consistent care or emotional support from a primary caregiver early in life; leads to inconsistent behaviour being displayed towards this caregiver by the child

Genetic vulnerability

an increased likelihood that a person will develop a particular mental disorder because of their DNA

mindfulness meditation

the practice of observing the present moment, suspending judgements, and focusing on something calm and peaceful

protective factor

a factor that plays a role in decreasing the chance of developing a mental disorder

rumination

thinking about and focusing on negative thoughts and experiences

self efficacy

a person's confidence that they can complete life tasks and meet their goals

stigma

the feeling of shame or disgrace associated with a personal characteristics that indicates you belong to a culturally devalued group in society - this can be real or imagined

Culture

a way of life that is shared and learned

Cultural continuity

the ability to preserve the historical traditions of a culture and carry them forward with that culture into the future

Cultural determinant of wellbeing

cultural factors that influence health and wellbeing

Self-determination

the ability to participate in decisions on matters that affect one's life

Avoidance behaviour

actions a person takes to escape from difficult thoughts and feelings

Behavioural model

phobias are learned through experience and may be developed, sustained or modified by environmental consequences such as rewards or punishments

Catastrophic thinking

a cognitive bias that involves overestimating and exaggerating the worst possible outcomes to situations even though they are unlikely to occur

Classical conditioning

a simple form of learning that occurs through repeated association between a neutral stimulus and an unconditioned stimulus to produce a conditioned response

Cognitive bias

a tendency to think in a way that involves errors of judgment and faulty decision- making

Cognitive model

a model that describes how people's perceptions of situations influence their emotional and behavioural reactions

Dysfunctional GABA system

a failure to produce, release or receive the correct amount of gamma-aminobutyric acid

Gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA)

the main inhibitory neurotransmitter in the nervous system, associated with anxiety, specific phobias and Parkinson's disease

Glutamate

the main excitatory neurotransmitter in the nervous system, involved with learning and memory

Long-term potentiation (LTP)

the relatively permanent strengthening of synaptic connections as a result of repeated activation of a neural pathway

Memory bias

distorted thinking that either enhances or impairs the recall of a memory or alters its content

Negative reinforcement

when a behaviour is followed by the removal of an undesirable stimulus, increasing the likelihood of the behaviour occurring again

Operant conditioning

a type of learning process in which the likelihood of a voluntary behaviour occurring is determined by its consequence

Predisposition

A factor that increases susceptibility to a mental disorder

perpetuation

prolonging of the occurrence of a mental disorder and preventing recovery

precipitate

trigger the onset of exacerbation of a mental disorder

Specific environmental trigger

an object, situation or circumstance that probably caused a direct, negative traumatic experience associated with extreme fear or discomfort, which then acts as a cue for future phobic fear responses

Specific phobia

a persistent, intense, irrational fear of a specific object or event

Agonist

a type of drug that mimics the action of a neurotransmitter that binds to the same receptor by stopping the presynaptic neuron from firing

Benzodiazepine

a type of agonist drug that works on the central nervous system to make the post-synaptic neuron less likely to fire, which regulates anxiety

Biological intervention

a treatment targeting physiological mechanisms believed to contribute to a condition

Breathing retraining

an anxiety management technique that involves teaching someone with a specific phobia how to control their breathing in the presence of their phobic stimulus

Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT)

a common intervention consisting of a range of cognitive and behavioural therapies and learning principles to help people identify and change unhelpful thought processes, feelings and behaviours to more helpful ones

Evidence based intervention

a treatment shown to be effective in valid and reliable research studies

Fear hierarchy

a list of anxiety inducing experiences relating to the patient's phobia, in order from easiest to confront, to the most difficult to confront

Hyperventilation

rapid, shallow breathing

Psychoeducation

educating people diagnosed with mental health conditions and their family members about the disorder and possible treatment options

Psychological intervention

treatment that uses activities such as psychotherapy to modify thoughts, feelings and behaviours

Psychotherapy

any talking therapy designed to help people with a broad range of mental health issues

Relaxation technique

any method or procedure that helps to induce a physiological and psychological relaxation response

Social Intervention

an intervention designed to increase social support for people with a mental illness

Systematic desensitisation

a method for treating phobias in which the phobic stimulus is progressively introduced while the person uses relaxation techniques until their fear is replaced by a relaxation response